them and the horse patiently plodding along. Occasionally they moved to one side or the other. It was probably done to avoid something.
Warm, her stomach growled. Could she ask if he had some tea and cakes?
She could be flipping out. Dreaming. Hallucinating? Was she actually on a horse riding. “Where are we going?”
“The place is yonder a ways. We’ll have a fire.”
“In the—place?”
“Yeah.”
Now how big could his place be? She said a nothing, “Oh.” And she knew full well that everybody in TEXAS called their holdings their “place” because that was where they were. It could be a half acre or it could be miles square. She sighed.
And he heard her defeated sound. “It’ll be okay.”
Sure it would. Men were not any smarter than women. Their perception of things was unusual and completely different. Even plain, ordinary words had other, changed meanings. And then there was sex.
Lauren had found that out when she was quite young. Her cousin Theo had played Doctor with the fascinated Davie sisters. At that age, it was just looking.
Since that introduction by Theo, Lauren had managed to avoid such bold encounters. She was still a virgin.
Theo had gone on to actually become a doctor. Lauren had never gone to him for medical purposes.
Being human was one big pain in the neck, or lower. There were all the rules. All the customs. No other mammal had to fool around with all that stuff. The difference was to prove humans are superior beings.
Even as limited as she was, she could peek around the supposedly virgin land. She wondered what horrific wastes humans had discarded, buried deep in the low, surrounding hills. Were the hills real hills or just earth-covered piles of waste? Animals didn’t pollute the world but briefly. Humans really loused it all up. In some places, the pollution would be dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.
How could the people, who lived in that distant future, know? What if the chemical wars wiped out all previous knowledge and future peoples or creatures would have no clue about the dreadful storages of harmful waste?
Being human wasn’t a brag.
Being a woman meant you followed all sorts of rules. You either did—or you didn’t. Hadn’t.
Since Lauren was in the didn’t/hadn’t category, if she was in the middle of dying, right then, and going to freeze into an ice statue, should she take advantage of this opportunity to know what Life Was All About?
She’d take another look at this person whose name was nicely Kyle Phillips, and she’d decide. Had her guardian angel sent him so that she could experience him? It seemed rather unkind to take advantage of an innocent man.
Of course, he had asked if she was a streetwalker. He might not be too difficult to lure.
She lifted her head and therefore straightened her body a bit as she peered around to see if anything was in sight. It was snowing!
As she said, “It’s snowing in TEXAS!” She became vividly aware that her shift had caused his hand to come free of her armpit and cover her breast! She said, “Sorry,” as if that had been her fault.
He put his hand back under her armpit and replied, “My fault.”
How kind of him to take her guilt. She would have to pay attention and move more carefully.
She was again discreet. With her head back under his chin, she could smell the freshness of him. Obviously, he didn’t smoke. He smelled nicely male and pure. And she began to wonder what he looked like.
As had happened on occasion, she would more than likely be disappointed.
She tried to recall how tall he was and how he looked…really. He was becoming quite nice in her mind. When they got to the Place, wherever that could be, she would be able to see if all her thinking about him was true.
With some tolerance, she considered how like a woman to devise a romance out of absolutely nothing. He’d found some dumb broad out on the land with no means of transport and not dressed for the weather. And he’d managed to get her wrapped up nicely and held warmly.
So her romance novel mind had gone into overdrive, and she was imagining a Hero with a capital H. How could she possibly be so silly?
It was the storm. Her circumstances. And the fact that she would have frozen to death without him, and she was grateful? Yes. Umh-mmm. Mmmm.
Her imagination was really pretty silly. He was silent. He hadn’t talked all that much. He looked around and guided the horse. She wouldn’t even know he was aware of her being a woman except that his hand had been tugged from her armpit and that hand had curled around her breast.
How cheeky of him to have done that. He had no upbringing. He probably was an orphan and not schooled at all.
If that was so, she might could—use him! She just might do that. She’d be kind but she would see if she could use him. She’d look him over and see if she could endure him—enough. It would be an experiment. Out in the blowing storm that carried a load of snow. the snow was getting deep.
She asked, “Are we lost?”
“Not yet.”
An interesting reply. Not-yet. Did he plan for them to become “lost” while he had his wicked way with her?
Well, now, Lauren, not every man sees you as a tasty morsel. He probably has five women waiting for him plus a wife and fourteen children.
Or he might not really care for women. That could be. Think of a curious woman being in a cabin in a storm with an indifferent man.
Perhaps there would be a TV? She didn’t have her purse. It was back in her roofless, exposed and vulnerable car. In her purse was her tatting. Her tatting had saved her sanity any number of utterly boring times.
What did the man behind her look like? The man who was holding her body on the horse with him. He breathed. She could hear him breathe. It was as if keeping her balanced was a chore.
It was interesting that the horse wasn’t bothered by the storm. She sneaked a glove-filmed hand from its shelter, leaned forward and brushed the snow from the horse’s mane.
Somehow, that jarred Kyle’s hand from her armpit again and it was again on her breast. As she stiffened and leaned back, he said, “Sorry.”
And he again tucked the hand into her armpit. He had a little trouble, and he had to move her breast over so that he could get his hand where it was supposed to be. But he accomplished that discreetly with his wrist.
Lauren considered thoughtfully that, if he was at all tolerable, he would probably be easy. She would see.
The horse plodded on through the snow. She again asked, “Are we lost?”
And he again replied, “Not yet.”
She
